


Chuck v. The Leap Back

by Wtchcool



Category: Chuck (TV), Quantum Leap
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Difficult Decisions, Epic Friendship, F/M, Gen, Memory Loss, Sacrifice, Time Travel, holograms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-31 01:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wtchcool/pseuds/Wtchcool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck has to choose between staying with Sarah and saving Casey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chuck v. The Leap Back

**Author's Note:**

> Presenting the 4th season premiere of “Quantum Leap,” “The Leap Back,” with a twist—the Quantum Leap stars have been replaced by the characters from “Chuck.”

_Theorizing that one could time travel within one’s lifetime, Dr. Chuck Bartowski stepped into the Quantum Leap Accelerator—and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Casey, an observer from his own time that appears in the form of a hologram that only Chuck can see and hear. And so Chuck has been leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home._  
  
  
February 27, 1973  
  
  
    “Chuck? Chuck, are you alright?” Casey asked. Chuck was lying on the ground, and hadn’t stirred yet. Hearing Casey’s voice, he stood up.  
  
  
    “John?” Casey sighed in relief. Chuck was okay. He’d been scared there for a minute; after all, before the leap, Chuck was undergoing electroshock therapy. Not to mention they’d almost lost contact with each other.  
  
  
    “We must’ve leaped together,” Chuck said. Then he frowned, taking a look at the uniform that Casey was wearing—that he hadn’t been wearing a couple of minutes ago, before they’d leaped. Casey looked down and noticed it, too.  
  
  
    “Why am I dressed like this?” he asked.  
  
  
    “I think—” Chuck began, as a strange notion occurred to him. “Come here,” he said to Casey. There was a cannon separating the two, but Casey walked straight towards it, expecting to go through it as if it didn’t exist. So, he was disturbed when he bumped into it, and found that the cannon actually barred his path.  
  
  
    “What’s going on?” Casey asked. Chuck steeled himself, and then attempted to walk through the cannon as Casey had failed to do—but Chuck succeeded where Casey had failed. The two men looked at each other, mouths agape.  
  
  
    “Oh, boy,” they said in unison.  
  
  
INSERT    THEME    MUSIC  
  
  
    Chuck was quickly piecing together what had happened. “We must have simul-leaped…When the lightning struck, somehow we switched places…Our neurons and mesons must have gotten mixed…” Chuck pursed his lips. “That means part of me is you. I wonder what part…” Meanwhile, Casey was punching buttons on the colorful hand-link in his hand, as he often did, but for once he was getting no response whatsoever—not so much as a string of gibberish on the screen or a high pitched beep.  
  
  
    “GRIMES,” Casey yelled in frustration, but no one answered him. “Why isn’t this thing working?” he asked Chuck, gesturing to the hand-link.  
  
  
    “It’s not working because Ziggy isn’t going to be a gleam in my eye for another…” he trailed off, unsure how many more years it would be before he’d invent the parallel-hybrid computer. Chuck looked around. “I don’t know what date it is, but it looks like we’ve gone back further than I’ve ever leaped before.” In fact, if Chuck didn’t know any better, he’d say it looked like they were at some point in the ‘70s.  
  
  
    “According to my theory, a person can only leap within his own lifetime.” As Chuck was born in 1981, he’d never traveled further than that into the past. “John, when were you born?”  
  
  
    “Oh, my birthday is February 27, 19, uh, 19—” the older man’s face went blank. What was going on? Why was he having trouble remembering?  
  
  
    “It’s okay, John!” Chuck tried to reassure his friend. “The leap has probably Swiss-cheesed your memory, but it’s only temporary! Remember when I first leaped? I couldn’t even remember my own name.”  
  
  
    “Well, I remember mine. It’s John.” That had to be right; that’s what Chuck had called him…so why did a voice in his mind insist that his name was Alex?  
  
  
“John what?” Chuck said, unable to keep a smile from creeping onto his face.  
  
  
“You think I don’t remember my last name?” Casey asked. Chuck laughed.  
  
  
    “I’m prepared to bet on it,” Chuck said.  
  
  
    “Well, then you’d lose. It’s ‘Bartowski,’ ha!” Casey said smugly. Chuck grinned.  
  
  
    “It’s ‘Casey,’ ha!”  
  
  
    “Casey?” the colonel repeated. “Then who the hell is Bartowski?”  
  
  
    “I’m Bartowski,” Chuck explained. “You’re somewhere in the ‘70s and I’m—” Chuck’s eyes widened. “I’m home. I’m in the Imaging Chamber.” He turned to Casey. “Open the Imaging Chamber door.”  
  
  
     At this point, Casey wasn’t quite sure what Chuck meant, given the gaps in his memory, but he went back to punching buttons on the hand-link, to no avail.  
  
  
    “Here, give me that,” Chuck said, after all, he was the Observer now; he should be the one using it. He reached for the hand-link, but his hand went straight through it. Right—he had to remember that he wasn’t actually in the same time as the hand-link. But then, how to open the door?  
  
  
    “Morgan!” Chuck yelled, but got no answer. Casey scrunched up his face, trying to remember who Chuck was calling.  
  
  
    “Morgan, you mean the little troll? What’s his name, Grimes?” Chuck frowned; he did not appreciate the way Casey was describing his other best friend, but he nodded.  
  
  
    “Morgan!” he called again.  
  
  
    “Grimes!” Casey yelled. After a couple of repetitions, Chuck stopped shouting Morgan’s name and tried to figure out why he wasn’t getting an answer.  
    “If Ziggy—” at Casey’s blank look, Chuck explained, “Ziggy’s the parallel-hybrid computer I invented. If Ziggy detects an anomaly, like the one that might have been caused when we got struck by lightning, Ziggy would conclude that a nuclear bomb went off. In that event, Ziggy’s programmed to seal off the Imaging Chamber door to contain the nuclear radiation.”  
  
  
    “Wouldn’t you suffocate, then?” Casey asked, looking at Chuck.  
  
  
    “No, I’ve got enough air in here to last me awhile,” Chuck said, not particularly worried about that.  
  
  
    “Didn’t you program a fail-safe—some way of overriding the command to seal off the Imaging Chamber?” Casey asked.  
  
  
    “Of course I did!” Chuck huffed. What kind of a moron did Casey think he was? “I could override the command using the hand-link,” Chuck said. Casey raised an eyebrow. As in the hand-link that was now sitting in Casey’s hand, completely useless?  
  
  
    “Morgan!” Casey and Chuck shouted. While they were shouting, a postal service truck stopped on the street a few yards away, and the driver got out, looking at Casey.  
  
  
    “Justin? Is that you? Justin?” Chuck noticed the mailman’s approach first, and shushed Casey, who had been yelling at Morgan to open the door.  
  
  
    “He’s talking to you. Your name’s Justin,” Chuck said to Casey.  
  
  
    “Justin!” the mailman came up and hugged Casey as though greeting a long-lost friend. Fortunately, he didn’t notice Casey stiffen, and glare at Chuck, as though the invasion of his personal space was somehow the nerd’s fault.  
  
  
    “Oh my God! I almost forgot that you were coming home from Vietnam today!” the mailman continued, after he’d finally released Casey. When Casey didn’t reply, the man’s smile dimmed a fraction.  
  
  
    “Don’t tell me you don’t remember your pal, Brian?”  
  
  
    “Casey!”  Chuck hissed.  
  
  
    “Uh, of course, I remember you, Brian. It’s just that—”  
  
  
    “You’re disoriented from leaping—I mean flying,” Chuck said.  
  
  
    “Right, I’m a little disoriented after the flight,” Casey said to Brian, who slapped his forehead, slightly embarrassed.  
  
  
    “Of course you must be jetlagged,” Brian said. There was a brief silence.  
  
  
    “Ask how she is,” Chuck said to Casey.  
  
  
    “She?” Casey asked.  
  
  
    “There’s always a ‘she,’” Chuck said.  
  
  
    “How is she?” Casey asked Brian. This time, the smile was wiped off Brian’s face.  
  
  
    “I thought Suzanne wrote to tell you.” Casey felt an odd feeling inside, one that he didn’t care for in the slightest.  
  
  
    “She didn’t have to tell me.”  
  
  
    “You can’t blame her—well, I mean—it’s just that, she thought you were dead,” Brian said. “We all thought you were; you’d been missing for so long.”  
  
  
    “Is she already married?” Casey asked.  
  
  
    “No…the wedding’s not for another…hmm; let’s see, today’s…February 27…”  
  
  
    “That’s my birthday,” Casey said. Brian gave him a funny look.  
  
  
    “You’re birthday’s in April, Justin. When was the last time you ate?”  
  
  
    “I don’t remember,” Casey said.  
  
  
    “I’ve got to go finish my route. How about you meet me at the diner later?” Brian said. Casey nodded, and Brian got back in his truck and drove off.  
  
  
    “Why am I feeling déjà vu?” Casey asked Chuck, once Brian was gone. Chuck looked down at the ground. If Casey’s Swiss-cheesed brain had forgotten, maybe he shouldn’t remind him what happened…No, better to just get this over with; Casey would remember sooner or later.  
  
  
    “You’re feeling that way because you were in the Marines, Casey, when you were recruited into the N.S.A. They told your fiancée—”  
  
  
    “…that I was killed in action. I remember now,” Casey said, scowling at nothing in particular.  
  
  
    “I don’t know whether you’re here to get Justin and Suzanne back together, or to make sure that Suzanne marries the other guy.”  
  
  
    “The other guy’s probably a moron,” Casey put in.  
  
  
    “You don’t know that,” Chuck said. “I’ve got to find a way out of this chamber. I wish I could see through this hologram and find the door.”  
  
  
    “What are you talking about? You’re the hologram,” Casey said.  
  
  
    “To you, yes. But to me, it’s the other way around, and everything I see here is a hologram.”  
  
  
ACACACACACACACAC  
  
    It was a small town, so they found the diner quite easily. While Casey was having something to eat, and taking a look at Justin’s reflection in the mirror along the wall, Chuck went over to the calendar hanging on another wall. So the date was February 27, 1973. But why was Casey here? What was he supposed to change?  
  
  
    “Justin!” A young woman had walked into the diner, and paled as if she’d seen a ghost. She rushed up to Casey, but refrained from throwing her arms around him. She looked down.  
  
  
    “You’re really back,” she bit her lip. “Brian told me he’d seen you. You got the letter I sent you?”  
  
  
    “So that’s Suzanne,” Chuck said. Casey nodded.  
  
  
    “Yes, I got it,” Casey said. The door banged open suddenly, and a man stood in the doorway. He looked back and forth between Suzanne and Casey.  
  
  
    “Larry!” Suzanne called. “Uh, Larry, this is Justin. Justin this is—”  
  
  
    “I know who he is,” Casey said.  
  
  
    “Just got back from Vietnam, huh?” Larry asked.  
  
  
    “Larry would have gone to Vietnam, but he has flat feet,” Suzanne explained.  
  
  
    “Is that so?” Casey asked, narrowing his eyes.  
  
  
    “Yes, it is,” Larry said. “I suppose now that you’re back you think you’re going to steal my girl?”  
  
  
    “Seems to me that you’re the one who was doing the stealing while I was in the military, risking my life,” Casey said, his voice getting louder.  
  
  
    “Casey! What are you doing? I told you, we don’t know why you’re here,” Chuck said.  
  
  
    “I think I’m here to put Larry in his place,” Casey said.  
  
  
    “You want to take this outside?” Larry asked. In reply, Casey led the way to the door. Chuck followed the disputants out of the diner and watched them take up positions, ready to face-off. He opened his mouth to try to talk Casey out of fighting, and was taken off guard by what actually came out of his mouth.  
  
  
     “What are you waiting for? Kick his ass already, Casey!” Chuck’s eyes bulged, and he clamped a hand over his mouth. “Why did I say that?”  
  
  
    “I think I should warn you that I boxed in college,” Larry said to Casey.  
  
  
    “Yeah, but Casey knows how to rip you limb from limb. Make it slow and painful, Casey.” Chuck’s jaw dropped. Really, what was getting into him? Wait a minute…  
  
  
    “Oh my god, you’ve got a violent mind!” Chuck said, wincing at the mental images of what he could do to Larry if he wasn’t a hologram.  
  
  
    “Me? You’re the one telling me to rip this jerk limb from limb,” Casey said. While Casey was distracted, Larry lunged at him, but at the last minute, Casey reflexively grabbed Larry’s outstretched arm and twisted it. When Larry gasped in pain, Casey quickly let go. He was horrified to find that he had the urge to apologize and ask Larry if he was alright, but clamped down on it as Chuck replied.  
  
  
    “Yes, I know, but don’t you see? When we simul-leaped our neurons got mixed and—I think I got your aggressive side.” Casey processed that. Well, that would explain his strange need to make sure that he hadn’t hurt Larry too badly. Damn.  
  
  
    “Well, I’d like that part back,” Casey said, suddenly wishing he hadn’t gotten into this fight.  
  
  
    “You’re going to regret doing that to my arm,” Larry said, as he got ready to go back on the offensive.  
  
  
    “You know something? Your feet don’t look very flat now,” Casey said. While Larry looked down, puzzled, Casey aimed a kick to Larry’s jaw, and the man fell down, unconscious.  
  
  
    “Huh, well, you had enough aggression left to do that,” Chuck said. “That was a really nice kick, by the way.”  
  
  
ACACACACACACACAC  
  
    Brian drove Casey back to Justin’s house. After Brian drove off, Casey approached the door of the house Brian had indicated, and was about to open it, when Chuck burst through the door as if it didn’t exist.  
  
  
    “Boo!” Chuck said, laughing.  
  
  
    “That’s not funny,” Casey scowled.  
  
  
    “Revenge is mine, sayeth the hologram,” Chuck replied, as he proceeded to go over to a nearby tree and stick his head through it. How many times had Casey annoyed him by walking through solid objects? Let him get a taste of his own medicine.  
  
  
“Why are you so happy?” Casey asked, and Chuck quit fooling around.  
  
  
“I know how to get out of the Imaging Chamber,” Chuck said. “See, I figure that if we write to my dad’s lawyer and put, I don’t know, a $100 in an envelope, we can ask him to deliver a message to Stallion’s Gate on,” Chuck paused. “What’s today’s date?”  
  
  
“October 17, 2011,” Casey said without hesitation. Chuck did a double take.  
  
  
“Your Swiss-cheesed memory remembers that?”  
  
  
“There are some things you don’t forget,” Casey shrugged. “I was supposed to go to court today. My daughter’s ex-boyfriend is suing me for assault.”  
  
  
“Okaaaaaaaaaay.” Chuck was going to ask Casey what he did to the poor kid, but thought better of it. “Anyway, we ask the lawyer to deliver a message to Stallion’s Gate on October 17, 2011, and tell Morgan to open the Imaging Chamber door.”  
  
  
“Think that’ll work?”  
  
  
“Only one way to find out,” Chuck said. A few minutes later, Casey had a stamped and addressed envelope in his hand, and was heading to the mailbox on the street.  
  
  
“So if this works, it’ll feel instantaneous to us,” Chuck explained. “As soon as you put the envelope in the mailbox…” he trailed off, and his eyes unfocused.  
  
  
“What is it, Chuck?” Casey asked.  
  
  
“I’m remembering things, Casey,” Chuck said.  
  
  
“What things?” Casey asked, feeling uncomfortable. Chuck abruptly turned to Casey, his eyes narrowing.  
  
  
“Oh my—why didn’t you tell me?” Chuck asked. He could see from the expression on Casey’s face that the older man knew exactly what he was talking about.  
  
  
“I couldn’t tell you, Chuck,” Casey said.  
  
  
“Put the letter in the mailbox, Casey. NOW,” Chuck commanded. Reluctantly, Casey complied. Instantly, a doorway appeared out of thin air. With one glance back at Casey, Chuck ran towards the light. He paused, after he’d gone through the Imaging Chamber door, and looked back at Casey, but the image of him was starting to blur, and the next moment the door clanged shut. About facing, Chuck ran through the corridor, and his eyes lit up as he saw the blonde woman standing before him in the Control Room.  
  
  
“Sarah!” Chuck hurried over and embraced her, and the two kissed.  
  
  
“Chuck, you’re back!” Sarah said.  
  
  
“Sarah, how could I have forgotten you? You’re the love of my life. You’re my wife.”  
  
  
“It’s okay, Chuck. You’re back now,” Sarah said.  
  
  
“Chuck!”  
  
  
“Morgan, buddy!” Chuck exclaimed.  
  
  
“That really you, Bartowski?” a familiar voice asked.  
  
  
“Carina!” In his enthusiasm, Chuck went and hugged the technician.  
  
  
“Take it easy there, Romeo. Now you’re reminding me of Casey,” Carina said. Chuck felt his cheeks warm, and he pulled away from Casey’s lover.  
  
  
“We got your message, Chuck. Brilliant plan,” Morgan said. “They delivered it precisely thirty-eight years, seven months, and eighteen days after it was mailed. Doc wanted to say hi, by the way,” Morgan added, referring to the Project’s psychiatrist, “but he’s busy talking to the Visitor in the Waiting Room.” Chuck nodded, and glanced at the large blue sphere hanging from the ceiling in the room.  
  
  
“Do we know why Casey’s there?” Chuck asked Sarah. She shook her head. “Excuse me for a minute,” he said. He walked over to a control panel, and placed his hand over it. A beam shot out towards the sphere above.  
  
  
“Hello, Ziggy,” Chuck said.  
  
  
“Dr. Bartowski. I should’ve known you’d greet me last,” the computer replied.  
  
  
“What is Casey doing in 1973?” Chuck asked.  
  
  
“How should I know?” Ziggy shot back. “No one thought to enter any data for the year 1973 into my databanks.” Well, _duh_ , Chuck thought. Casey was supposed to be the Project Observer. No one expected the Leaper to go further back than 1981. “I’ve been gathering data on the year as fast as possible.”  
  
  
“And what did you find?”  
  
  
“I’m still processing the information. I should be able to give you a prediction of what Colonel Casey is supposed to do in about…8 hours.”  
  
  
“Eight hours?” Chuck repeated. “What if Casey doesn’t have eight hours?”  
  
  
“You’re the one that programmed me, Dr. Bartowski. You should remember that you didn’t program me to feel any guilt.” Chuck sighed. There was nothing he could do, then, until Ziggy was done doing her calculations.  
  
  
ACACACACACACAC  
  
    That night, after the first time they had been together in years, Chuck sat with his arms around Sarah, and the two gazed up at the stars. He pointed to one of the stars in the night sky.  
  
  
    “See that star, Sarah? It’s thirty-eight light years from Earth. The light we’re seeing now started its journey in 1973.” Sarah sighed.  
  
  
    “I know that you’re worried about him, Chuck,” she said.  
  
  
    “Well, yeah. Being an Observer isn’t the same as being a Leaper,” Chuck said. “I wish Casey was here… so I could wring his neck.”  
  
  
    “What?” Sarah asked.  
  
  
    “Sarah, how could he have not told me about you? He knew that I didn’t remember you, didn’t remember getting married.”  
  
  
    “I asked him not to tell you,” Sarah said.  
  
  
    “I’m sorry, you what?”  
  
  
    “You wouldn’t have felt free to do the things you have to do if you remembered that you were married,” Sarah said quietly. Chuck frowned, and searched through his memory, but it seemed that the longer he had been out of the Imaging Chamber, the fewer memories of leaping he had.  
  
  
    “Have I ever done anything to make you feel that I betrayed our marriage?” Chuck asked, worried.  
  
  
    “No,” Sarah replied, “no, I never felt betrayed by you, Chuck.” Before Chuck could say anything else, his watch beeped. Ziggy was ready for them in the Control Room.  
  
  
TLBTLBTLBTLB  
  
    “Well, Ziggy?” Chuck asked, after he and Sarah had gotten back to the Control Room.  
  
  
    “Well, what, Dr. Bartowski?” the computer asked. Chuck narrowed his eyes. Why did the computer have to play games with him?  
  
  
    “Just give me what I want, baby!” he warned.  
  
  
    “Oh, if you weren’t my father,” Ziggy replied, her ego insulted. “Fine, I’ve discovered an article from a local newspaper. I can now predict with 89% certainty that Colonel Casey is there to prevent Justin and Suzanne from committing suicide the night of February 27, 1973.”  
  
  
    “What?”  
  
  
    “They drive a car over the edge of Lovers’ Lane and die.”  
  
  
    “Where’s Casey now?” Chuck demanded.  
  
  
    “I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you with 97% certainty that Casey and Suzanne are either at the top of Lovers’ Lane or dead at the bottom.”  
  
  
    Chuck grabbed a hand-link (which was identical to the one in Casey’s possession, except that it would work), told Morgan to center him on Casey, and strode into the Imaging Chamber.  
  
  
TLBTLBTLBTLBTLB  
  
    Chuck found Casey smoking a cigar, sitting in a car with Suzanne on Lovers’ Lane, and explaining that the hand-link he was showing her was a new gadget the military was asking him to test out.  
  
  
    “Casey, did you and Suzanne—” Somehow, even without his aggressive side, Casey was able to silence Chuck with one look. Chuck shut his mouth and signaled for Casey to follow. Casey got the message and left Suzanne in the car while he went to talk to Chuck.  
  
  
    “Ziggy says that you’re here,” Chuck began reading from the hand-link, “to prevent a double Sue?” Chuck smacked the side of the device. “Oh, a double suicide.”  
  
  
    “Suicide?” Casey asked.  
  
  
    “Yeah, Suzanne’s and Justin’s.”  
  
  
    “That’s ridiculous, Chuck! They’re not about to commit suicide—” Whatever Casey was about to say next was lost as he collapsed to his knees. While Casey and Chuck had been distracted, Larry had first knocked Suzanne unconscious, and then had quietly come up behind Casey and knocked him out, too, with a blow to his head.  
  
  
    “Why you son of a—” One of Chuck’s hands reached behind his back…it wasn’t until the hand failed to find anything there that Chuck realized he’d been reaching for a gun. Ugh! That’d be Casey’s neurons acting up again. Chuck hated guns. A gun would hardly have done Chuck any good in the Imaging Chamber, anyway.  
  
  
    “Casey, wake up!” Chuck said, shouting at his friend, and frustrated that he couldn’t shake him awake. He knew that if he tried, his hand would go straight through Casey. “Wake up!” he repeated.  
  
  
    “Dr. Bartowski,” Ziggy’s voice called. “Casey has a concussion. He will not wake up for another ten minutes. Unfortunately, in about eight minutes, he and Suzanne will drive the car over the edge of Lovers’ Lane.”  
  
  
“How could they drive a car over the edge of a cliff if they’re unconscious?” Chuck asked.  
  
  
    “Oh, good point, Dr. Bartowski. I guess someone must push them,” Ziggy said, as if the notion hadn’t occurred to her.  
  
  
    “And I bet I know who that someone is,” Chuck growled, thinking of Larry. “Wake up, Casey!” Chuck tried again.  
  
  
    “I told you, Casey won’t wake up for another ten minutes…nine minutes now,” Ziggy said.  
  
  
    “Tell me something I don’t know!” Chuck shouted. The computer was silent for a moment before replying.  
  
  
    “Carina’s having an affair with Morgan.” What? Chuck would have spent more time trying to wrap his mind around that news, if the circumstances had been different.  
  
  
“There has to be some way I can save Casey!”  
  
  
    “There is,” Ziggy said. Chuck was at a loss.  
  
  
    “But I can’t help him as a hologram,” Chuck said, trying to figure a way out of this mess.  
  
  
    “I didn’t say it would be easy,” Ziggy said. Did Chuck imagine it or did her voice sound sympathetic for a moment? He shook his head and tried to figure out what he was missing. He couldn’t wake Casey up in time, and he couldn’t save Casey from the Imaging Chamber, so the only way he could save him would be… Oh. Chuck set his jaw, stood up from where he’d been crouching in the chamber, and tapped the buttons on the hand-link that would open the door.  
  
  
    As he arrived in the Control Room, Chuck called out.  
  
  
    “Carina! Bring me a Fermi Suit, and then prepare the Acceleration Chamber!”  
  
  
    “What are you doing, Chuck?” Sarah demanded.  
  
  
    “When I first leapt four years ago, it was random, I had no control over where I was going,” Chuck explained, as he changed into the suit that Carina had handed him. “But I’ve figured it out; I can leap into Casey in 1973.”  
  
  
    “No, you can’t,” Sarah said. “You hadn’t been born in 1973. You know you can’t go back that far.” Chuck walked over to Sarah and put his hands on her shoulders.  
  
  
    “When we simul-leaped,” Chuck said, “our neurons and mesons got mixed.” He paused. “Part of me is Casey.” Carina stared at Chuck. Sarah just went on to her next objection.  
  
  
    “How will you get back?” she asked.  
  
  
    “You’ll use the Retrieval Program,” Chuck said evasively.  
  
  
    “The one that doesn’t work?” Sarah asked.  
  
  
    “I updated it this afternoon,” Chuck said.  
  
  
    “Ziggy, what’s the probability that we could successfully bring Chuck back using the Retrieval Program?” Sarah asked.  
  
  
    “Ten percent,” Ziggy replied. Chuck frowned. Okay, that did sound pretty bad, but it was still an improvement over what the odds had been before.  
  
  
    “Sarah, I have to save Casey. How many times has Casey saved my life?”  
  
  
    “Thirty-six,” Ziggy supplied.  
  
  
    “I don’t care!” Sarah yelled, tears stinging her eyes. “I can’t lose you again.” Chuck felt crestfallen. As much as he needed to save Casey, he didn’t see how he could leave his wife like this. How could he leave her again without her blessing?  
  
  
    “Casey has one minute left,” Ziggy announced to the room in general. “Thirty seconds…” Sarah closed her eyes. Damn it! Chuck was right, of course. They couldn’t let Casey die…but why did it have to come to this?  
  
  
    “Go!” she said. Chuck looked at her.  
  
  
    “Go!” she repeated, the words ‘before I change my mind’ unspoken. Chuck took Sarah in his arms and kissed her, fervently, as Ziggy continued the countdown.  
  
  
    “Twenty seconds…”  
  
  
    “I love you, Sarah. I will come back to you.”  
  
  
    “Ten seconds…”  
  
  
    “I love you, Chuck,” she said, as her husband went into the Acceleration Chamber for the second time, and once again, vanished.  
  
TLBTLBTLBTLBTLB  
  
  
    It worked. Chuck leaped in, taking Casey’s place in 1973. Larry had already moved the bodies into the car, and was preparing to push it over the cliff when Chuck banged open the car door, startling the would-be killer. A few kung-fu moves later, and Larry was the one lying unconscious on the ground.  
  
  
TLBTLBTLBTLBTLB  
  
    Carina supported Casey and helped him walk through the Control Room.  
  
  
    “I’m fine. I’m fine!” he insisted.  
  
  
    Sarah walked over to the control panel, held her breath for a moment, and then let it out, slowly. “Ready to retrieve?” she asked the computer.  
  
  
    “Ready,” Ziggy affirmed.  
  
  
    “Retrieving,” Sarah said, as she gave Ziggy the command to run the updated Retrieval Program.  
  
TLBTLBTLBTLBTLB  
  
  
    Chuck wasn’t aware of the blue light that tried to engulf him for a moment, before fizzling out. He walked back to the car, where Suzanne was still slumped over the passenger’s seat, breathing steadily, but unaware of her surroundings, and how close she had come to death. He picked up the hand-link that had been left on the driver’s seat, and started punching buttons…but got no response. It took a moment for the reality of his sacrifice to sink in. The hand-link would not work for him again. He wasn’t home anymore; he was, once again, a Leaper…and he was stranded.  
  
  
TLBTLBTLBTLBTLBTLB  
  
  
    “When did he leap?” Sarah asked Casey.  
  
  
    “After Suzanne woke up,” Casey replied.  
  
  
“Does he remember me?” Sarah asked. Casey shook his head. Chuck’s memory had been Swiss-cheesed again.  
  
  
“He doesn’t even remember being back.”  
  
  
“Tell me about his current leap.”  
  
  
“He’s in 1988 now. He’s leapt into a single father—“  
  
  
    “Let me guess, he’s supposed to get the dad back together with the mom?” Sarah asked.  
  
  
    “Well, no. He’s supposed to get the dad together with this woman who’s crazy about him—I mean, not about Chuck, but—“  
  
  
    “I know what you mean,” Sarah said. “Chuck couldn’t do what he does if he remembered me.” She looked the Observer in the eye. “You can’t tell him, Casey. Promise me you won’t.” He did, reluctantly, and Sarah gazed out at the night sky. So he was in 1988? She pressed a button on her watch.  
  
  
    “Ziggy?”  
  
  
    “Yes, Dr. Walker?”  
  
  
    “Find me a star that’s 23 light years from Earth.” After Ziggy read them the coordinates, Casey pointed it out to Sarah.  
  
  
    “I love you, Chuck,” she whispered. She recalled his last words to her.  
  
  
     _“I love you, Sarah.”  
  
  
Postscript: Dr. Chuck Bartowski never returned home._

**Author's Note:**

> As QL fans know, the postscript is taken, not from “The Leap Back,” but from Quantum Leap’s series finale, “Mirror Image.”
> 
>  
> 
> What do you think of the juxtaposition?
> 
> I posted this for a couple of reasons: one, to try to tide over “Chuck v. PQL” readers until my next update. 
> 
> Two, to give Chuck fans a better sense of what QL was like, and to some extent, vice versa.


End file.
